


Just Another Dead Girl (Or the Things Daryl Sees)

by weezly14



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 17:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1478005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weezly14/pseuds/weezly14
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"His nightmares are filled with the faces of the people he couldn't save."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Dead Girl (Or the Things Daryl Sees)

**Author's Note:**

> I've been thinking a lot about that line in "Still." And how much Beth has noticed. And what Daryl might think about when he thinks about the past. When he looks at her. There's so much in that scene. This is me going off on a tangent about it. Apologies for incoherence/grammar. I'm run-on-sentence-happy. Sorry. Hope you enjoy.

            She shouts at him that she knows he looks at her and just sees another dead girl and it’s not the first time he realizes that he’s underestimated Beth Greene but it’s certainly the time that sticks out most.

\---

            It’s true.

            (He just never thought she’d see it.)

\---

            Amy.

            Sophia.

            Andrea.

\---

            (His nightmares are filled with the faces of the people he couldn’t save.)

\---

            He used to look at Beth and see what Sophia might’ve looked like, given the chance.

            He never paid the girl much attention before she went missing. She was just that kid who’s daddy was a prick like his daddy’d been, and he knew Ed knocked his wife around and figured he’d probably laid hands on his daughter, too, because he knows men like Ed and men like Ed tend to spread the abuse around, but he ignored it on purpose ‘cause if he didn’t he might do something stupid like beat him into the ground while he slept.

            He knows that’s part of why Merle insisted they set up their camp as far from them as possible.

            (He purposely never wondered about the ways Ed might’ve laid hands on his daughter because he knows men like Ed because his daddy was like that and his daddy—)

            And it was easier to be around them once Ed was gone but he still never paid them much mind. Until she got lost in the woods. And he tried to ignore the ways it made him feel but it felt like saving her would be like saving himself, somehow. He’d deny it to everyone but he could see a lot of himself in that little girl—that little girl with an asshole daddy and a weak momma, lost in the woods with no one to save her.

            _He_ ’ _d_ save her.

\---

            (He failed.)

\---

            Amy he’d noticed because Merle made a point of noticing her, and he knows his brother ain’t like that but he keeps an eye out just the same. World’d gone to shit after all; no accounting for what sort of crap Merle’d get himself into now that there wasn’t anyone to stop him or punish him much for it.

            (He ain’t afraid of Shane. Might be something shifty, maybe even dangerous ‘round his eyes, but he’s more the type of cop to plant evidence than rough up the guys he brings in. There’s a difference.)

            (Ain’t ‘til later Shane goes crazy, and even then he ain’t afraid of him.)

            But Amy’s sweet, and kind, and it never occurs to him that she needs protecting ‘cause she seems plenty capable, good head on her shoulders, and anyway he’s not looking to be protecting _anyone_ much less the blonde his brother makes no secret of staring after. So it’s a shock when they get back to the camp and everything’s in shambles and walkers are everywhere and Amy’s bleeding out in front of the RV.

            He’s not sure he understood then they could lose people even still, up where they were, and he sure as hell wasn’t expecting to lose her.

            And he’s still on the fringes of the group then, so it’s not so bad—these aren’t his kin—but it still—

            It’s something, watching Andrea sitting there with her.

            Still tastes like his fault.

\---

            (He wonders about Sophia sometimes, wonders what she might’ve been like when she grew up.)

\---

            He’d look at Andrea and think he hoped she’d be something like her, maybe.

            Andrea made it clear she didn’t need no one protecting her. Could take care of herself just fine. Which was bullshit. Tough face but underneath he knew she was scared of how she didn’t quite fit, scared of dying, just plain scared. Latched onto Shane ‘cause he seemed solid even as he spiraled out of control, but it made sense to him. In a group slowly breaking down, Shane was someone you knew wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not a bad guy to hitch your wagon to.

            He didn’t need to worry about Andrea because she worried after herself.

            But he doesn’t hesitate when she doesn’t show up.

            She may protest about how she don’t need anyone saving her ass, but he’ll do it anyway.

            ‘Cept they say she’s gone, walker took her down, no point, we’re moving on.

            So he does.

\---

            He failed Sophia because he couldn’t find her.

            He failed Andrea because he never looked.

\---

            He looks at Beth and he sees a girl who cut her wrists because she couldn’t take it.

            Who’d sing by the fire to keep spirits up.

            Who didn’t hesitate to take care of a baby that wasn’t even hers.

            Who’s made it further than he ever would’ve thought.

            At some point he stops looking at her and seeing a little girl who needs protecting and starts seeing a woman who could probably handle herself fine. He’s not sure when it happens, just that it does.

            (He keeps an eye on her anyway because he looks at her and he sees Amy and Andrea and Sophia, he sees the ones he couldn’t save, the ones he failed, and he won’t let it happen again, he won’t.)

            (He _can’t_.)

\---

            They haunt him, these blonde girls. Women.

\---

            (His momma was blonde.)

\---

            And she’s just this slip of a woman, he could break her in half, probably, _how_ has she made it this long, how has the world not crushed her, broken her spirit? It tried and it almost did and he hates himself for throwing that in her face but he does it ‘cause he’s drunk and angry and he’s knows she’s stronger now, knows that she might’ve tried once but she’s not that scared little girl anymore, knows she’s a strong woman who’s the only thing standing between him and—

            She _trusts_ him. She looks at him and can’t imagine the childhood he had, looks at him and sees a good man, looks at him and doesn’t blame him for all of them, for the ones that haunt him and the countless others he couldn’t save, either—Dale and T-Dog and Merle and Jimmy and Zach and her father—her _father_ —

            And she’s _beautiful_ , and he thinks he always knew it, always saw it but never paid it much mind, and now it’s all he can see, it’s her spirit and her smile and everything, he—

            He looks at her and she smiles at him and it feels like a chance, a change, something like redemption, maybe. Like she sees the ghosts over his shoulder but she takes his hand anyway, walks with him just the same, trusts him despite his track record, trusts him to keep her safe.

            He’s scared and guilty and he _failed_ her already, her daddy’s _dead_ and he couldn’t do anything to stop it, everyone they know—she’s lost everyone and is stuck with him and he can barely look at her for it and all she does it stand there and take his lashing out at her and gives it right back, and—

            “I know you look at me and just see another dead girl.”

            And _fuck_ if she doesn’t know him like she’s been paying as much attention to him as he does to her.

            And _fuck_ if Sophia don’t still hurt like shit, all this time later.

            Wasn’t even his kid but—

            (Carol told him once that he’d done more for that little girl in one day than her daddy had in her whole life.)

            (But he couldn’t save her. Couldn’t do that much.)

\---

            Difference between Carol and Beth?

            When he lashed out at Carol—after Sophia—she didn’t say a word. Just stood there and took it, flinched when he got too close like he was like Ed, like he’d actually raise a hand to her, like he’s like his daddy.

            But Beth?

            She tells him he’s being a jackass and shouts right back at him, doesn’t fall in on herself, gets in his face and pushes him back.

            Carol looked at him like he could still turn into Ed at any moment. Beth looked at him like the thought’d never even crossed her mind.

\---

            He failed them, all of them—Amy, Sophia, Andrea, Dale, T-Dog, Merle—

            But he failed Rick, too, he failed them _all_ , the living, because the Governor showed up again and the Governor kidnapped her daddy and the Governor—

            That’s on _him_.

\---

            She hugs him like it’s not.

\---

            (It feels like redemption.)

\---

            All these blonde women he failed.

\---

            His momma had blonde hair. Didn’t look it most of the time. Most of the time it looked brown, all greasy and dirty from being unwashed. But sometimes she’d get dolled up all nice to go out—when she wasn’t getting wasted passing out on the couch, getting loaded with his daddy in the bathroom.

            Sometimes she’d looked beautiful.

            He told her so, once. She got dressed up all nice to go out and he told her she looked pretty and he learned right quick, from Merle and his daddy, that you don’t say shit like that, you don’t tell them they’re pretty, that that’s a pussy assed thing to do. Women aren’t _pretty_ , aren’t beautiful.

            (Merle always said he was the sweet one but that got beat out of him fast.)

            But his momma’d had blonde hair, and blue eyes, and some days she looked so beautiful he couldn’t understand why she was with his daddy, why she’d ever chosen him, why she stayed. And it made his heart hurt thinking about it, so he didn’t.

            Some days he looked at Carol and saw his momma, saw her weakness. She might’ve stood up to his daddy sometimes, yelled back at him and slapped him, but she never left for all the beatings she took, and never said a word when he turned on Merle and him.

            He looked at Carol and saw the mother who did nothing. Powerless to save her child.

            (Some days he hated her.)

\---

            Some days he looks at Beth and she’s _beautiful_ , and he thinks of his momma and how scared he is of turning into his daddy.

\---

            And he thinks he would’ve maybe slit his wrists like her if not _for_ her—only he wouldn’t’ve failed at _that_ —

            And he thinks she has no idea what her hand grabbing his means to him.

            And he thinks maybe it’s better that way.

\---

            But—

\---

_we’re alone in our own world_

_and you don’t wanna be my boyfriend,_

_and I don’t wanna be your girl._

_and that—that’s a relief._

_we’ll drink all our grief_

_and pine for summer._

_and we’ll buy beer to shotgun_

_and we’ll lay in the lawn_

_and we’ll be good._

_\---_

            And—

            “What changed your mind?”

\---

            And he looks at her and he sees dead blonde girls he couldn’t save.

\---

            And he looks at her and he sees _her_ , who believes in him, in _good._

_Still._

\---

_and we’ll buy beer to shotgun_

_and we’ll lay in the lawn_

_and we’ll be good_

_\---_

            And he _won’t_ fail her, he can’t, he—

\---

            (He does.)


End file.
